Welcome back to my Art Tips Series! It’s been a while between drinks… you can find the first 10 Tips in the series here.

But today it’s all about the price of paint. Why are some colours more expensive than others? What does ‘Series’ mean?

I’ll tell you up front (in case you don’t already know) that I do sell paint. And it’s the most delicious paint I’ve ever used. Honestly, if it was safe to do so, I’d probably eat it. So in the interests of full disclosure, I’ll tell you now that my info is definitely skewed towards the Golden brand of acrylics.

Firstly, understand that it pretty much comes down to the cost of the pigments used to make each colour. For example, cobalt is a chemical element derived from nickel and copper mining and makes a blue pigment, and cadmium makes red, orange and yellow pigments. Some pigments are natural, and others are synthetically produced.

So, to communicate the value of the pigment used in each paint colour, manufacturers group colours into various price bands. Some manufacturers use letters (e.g. Series A, Series B) and others use numbers (e.g. Series 1, Series 2). You’ll find the higher the letter or number, the more expensive the paint is.

An aside – Some paint manufacturers indicate whether a color is opaque, transparent, or semi-transparent on the tube. With the Golden paints pictured above, they have actually handpainted a  brush stroke of the colour over a series of printed black bars. This means you can also see the final dried color, which is usually a little darker that what you see in the tube.

With the Golden acrylic paints I stock, the Heavy Body (texture of butter) 60ml tubes range in price from Series 1 – $12 to Series 9 – $28, and the Fluid (like cream) 119ml range from Series 1 – $18.50 to Series 9 – $44.90.

If you’re buying paint from the cheap shop which is all the same price and doesn’t have Series numbers on it, know that any art made from it may not last (the paint can discolour or peel and flake), and the pigments used will be seriously minimal. For example, to get a good coverage of blue sky, you’d use A LOT more of the cheap stuff than you would the quality stuff. And if you’ve only ever used the cheap stuff, you’ll be in heaven when you use a better quality paint!

“Student Quality” paint is also less expensive because there is less pigment used and more of the acrylic binder. A good brand of Student Acrylic is still better than the cheap stuff, but please don’t use it if you think you may accidentally paint your masterpiece! A good way to avoid this possibility, is to buy the best quality you can afford, along with a medium such as Fluid Matt Medium (I haven’t got it in stock and the moment, but email me if you’d like me to order it for you – it’s $23) or a Regular Gel, which has the same consistency as Golden Heavy Body Acrylics, and can extend the paint (which basically means “makes it go further”). Using these products mean you use less paint and of course that makes it more affordable.

I hope that’s helped you be more knowledgeable in the paint aisle. Next week it’s a discussion on what would be a good ‘beginner’s palette’ of colours. And then, the week after that, we’ll talk about ‘skin tone’ which was the bane of my ‘art life’ for years. If you’ve ever tried to paint skin tone, there may be a tip or two in it for you.

Is there anything else that puzzles you about paint? Would be happy to help.